The Deep Satisfaction of Mini-Goals

Setting long-term goals is, of course, a great way to keep your life moving in a positive direction, to help you achieve all the things you want to achieve.  

However, goal setting is useless unless you can keep those goals in mind now, unless you continually ask yourself whether what you're doing contributes to reaching that goal.  The trouble with this is at least two-fold:

1- It's difficult to keep several far off goals in mind at once, and

2- Even in you keep your goals in mind, it can be difficult to know whether your actions are in line with them.

I've taken a few steps to deal with (1).  First, I've narrowed my long-term goals down to three mid-term (about five years from now) goals.  Second, I've written them down in bold letters, framed them, and hung them on my wall.  Seriously.  In fact, I took down the wall clock and replaced it with my goals.  Every time habit turns my head to check the time, I see my list of goals.

But this does not resolve problem (2).  For example, one of my goals is to finish and publish my novel.  The list on my wall keeps this near the fore of my mind, but I'm still not always sure whether a given action of mine is keeping me on track.  For example, it may be true that going for a run will improve my brain function, which in turn will make it easier for me when I sit down at my computer to write.  But it may also be true that the time spent running would have been better spent actually writing. 

Reframing your goals as habit-changes may be one way to overcome (2), and that's what I did automatically with the other two goals on my list.  But with my novel, my goal is not to simply write every day.  My goal is to finish.  And publish. 

Here is where mini-goals come in.  Setting them happened for me accidentally when I ran into Randy Ingermason's Snowflake Method for writing a novel.  Though I'm much further along in my writing than I think most members of his target audience, I decided to pull myself away from my routine and give his steps a try.  Writing in steps meant, basically, setting mini-goals. 

And you know what?  It was deeply satisfying.  Instead of each day knowing I'd not yet reached my goal, each day wondering if I was really on track, I finished each day knowing I'd accomplished a specific task I'd set out to do.  The idea of mini-goals is nothing new, but it was something I'd fogotten.  If you find yourself slipping away from your goals, you may want to give it a try.